Advisers: Indictment kick-starts 2024 campaign and MAGA rally time

The indictment and pending arraignment of former President Donald Trump will act as an abrupt kick-start of the 2024 presidential campaign and should be used by the poll-leading candidate to rally his base and fight the charges to the end, current and past advisers to the Republican told Secrets.

MAGA-linked political advisers, some very close to Trump, are urging the former president to lean into the charges and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to stir support of his base and attract independent voters upset over the weaponization of liberal law enforcement.

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In several interviews since the news of the indictment over alleged pre-2016 campaign hush payments broke yesterday, GOP and Trump advisers were in line with the theme in a just-released video from the Trump-related super PAC Make America Great Again Inc.

In that video, Trump says, “You must keep pushing forward. Never, ever give up.” And, he added, “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you.”

Mark Serrano, a 2020 senior adviser to Trump, was forceful in calling on the president’s team to push back hard.

“President Trump and his team should and will put their shoulder to the wheel and fight like hell, because it’s ultimately not about him — it’s about the fundamental principles of freedom and justice in America for which they’re fighting,” he said.

Serrano, president of Virginia-based ProActive Strategies, added, “This is now the true launch of the 2024 presidential campaign, so I would advise the Trump campaign to rally his masses of supporters across America to get organized. Register voters, recruit volunteers, host local events with campaign leaders, and build their war chest — because all the fundamentals of a campaign just became more critical and urgent than ever.”

Pollster John McLaughlin, who has polled for Trump, agreed that the president has to keep the pressure on and call it a Biden White House political attack.

“The only crime Trump committed is leading Biden in the polls. The Biden White House and D.C. establishment are petrified Trump will win again, and they are desperate to defeat him, even if they have to corrupt and politicize the justice system,” McLaughlin told Secrets.

He added that the GOP and Trump have to “step it up. We cannot let them legitimize this corrupt political persecution of Biden’s opponents. If they get away with this, the Biden radical Left will investigate, indict, and jail any political opponent just to win elections.”

Another key conservative strategist for several influential groups Trump relied on during his presidency said that the president should call the indictment, as he did two impeachments, an attack on America and nearly half the voting population that voted for him.

“The challenge for the Trump team is to not make this solely about him, or I think it fails in its political opportunity. They must broaden this to be about the weaponization of law enforcement against citizens,” said the insider.

He compared the indictment to liberals attacking enemies such as journalist Matt Taibbi for releasing Twitter notes about the Biden team and the Obama-era IRS targeting conservative groups.

“This is Kremlin-style canceling of your political opponents by the hard-line progressives, and if Trump drives that narrative, with him as the poster child, it can be a unifying event with long-lasting political impact,” said the adviser.

Another adviser to conservative advocacy groups told Secrets that Trump’s team should collect statements from enemies and liberals who are voicing concerns about the politics of the indictment.

“One thing his team should do is gather all the reaction from liberal and independent legal analysts who have denounced this indictment, both in quotes and video across all platforms. The more they push these observations out into the public, the better it positions Trump in the court of public opinion,” he said.

Many said that “Trump should be Trump.”

A longtime strategist who worked on the Trump transition in 2016 said, “Since Trump came down the escalator, almost eight years ago, he has engaged his campaigns and governing in his own trademarked way. Head-on. Right or wrong, he plunges through each day, intent on achieving the goals he has set.”

What’s more, the insider said the former president should carry a hard edge into the White House if elected. “Personnel is policy, and he should appoint a strong, hard-charging White House staff and Cabinet secretaries who share his America First philosophy so he can literally drain the swamp and build on his enormous accomplishments in a second term,” he said.

Political strategists said the coming charges and trial should become the focus of the former president’s campaign rallies — and he should hold more.

“Trump,” said one strategist, should “use this indictment as a way to generate outrage” of MAGA. And, he added, Trump should hold “a larger number of events to declare it an outrage and abuse of the justice system.”

Serrano took that idea one step further.

“I would also plan a national night of freedom where patriots join in town squares in communities across the country, light candles as a sign of the light of liberty, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and sing the national anthem together. This will focus Americans from all walks of life on what is truly at stake,” he said.

He said that Trump is being assaulted worse than in his first campaign and two impeachments by foes attempting to thwart any chance of the 45th president returning to the Oval Office.

“Donald Trump turned Washington on its head in 2016, and the vast forces of the establishment have done everything possible ever since — legal and illegal — to prevent him from succeeding, and now to prevent him from returning to office,” Serrano said.

“Ironically, this dumpster fire justice in New York City is converting millions of Americans into Trump supporters in the 2024 election, because they will no longer stand idly by and see the Democrats subvert the rule of law to achieve their political objectives,” he said, adding that now would be a good time for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to “endorse Trump — not for him, but for America.”

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Polls do suggest that Trump could expand his base in the wake of the indictment. Reuters/Ipsos polling data shared with Secrets Friday indicated that the case should fire up MAGA and potentially some independent voters.

In that data, more independent voters than not see the indictment as politically motivated and meant to doom his political comeback.